Roberts saves healthcare — and the court

We know the Supreme Court is powerful. On Dec. 12, 2000, they decided
that George W. Bush would be the next president of the United States. On
June 28, 2012, they decided that Barack Obama would be reelected
president of the United States.

There’s no escaping the political implications of the court’s
long-awaited decision on healthcare. Even Mitt Romney seems to agree.
Two days before the court’s ruling, he told supporters: “As you know,
the Supreme Court is going to be dealing with whether or not ObamaCare
is constitutional. If it is not — if ObamaCare is not deemed
constitutional — then the first three and a half years of this
president’s term would have been wasted on something that has not helped
the American people.”

Surely, Governor, if that statement is true, then the converse is true: The fact that the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act means that Barack Obama, in fact, spent the first three and a half years of his presidency on something that that was not a waste of time — that, in fact, has helped the American people tremendously.

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Maybe Mitt should have talked to a certain former Republican governor of Massachusetts before making such a public fool of himself. After all, the individual mandate was first put forward in 1989 by the conservative Heritage Foundation as a cost-cutting measure and the only fiscally responsible way to achieve universal healthcare. In 1993, it was the core of the Republican Party’s alternative to President Clinton’s healthcare reform legislation and supported by 18 Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Bob Dole. And, of course, it was enthusiastically embraced and made the law of Massachusetts by Gov. Mitt Romney.

It was only after President Obama and other Democrats, in an effort to win Republican votes, adopted the individual mandate that Republicans suddenly turned against it — under the sound governing principle “If Obama’s for it, I must be against it.” They then made the individual mandate the heart of their legal case against the Affordable Care Act: arguing, in effect, against the legality of their own idea. Which turned out to be a fatal mistake. The court disagreed, finding that requiring people to buy health insurance might be questionable, but fining or otherwise punishing them for not doing so was clearly within the powers of Congress.

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act is a huge policy and political victory for President Obama. It’s a big win for the American people, who are already benefiting from many key provisions of the act. But it’s also a big victory for the Supreme Court itself, whose reputation under Chief Justice John Roberts has been suffering. According to a New York Times poll earlier this month, only 44 percent of Americans approve of the job the court is doing — and three-quarters say the justices are swayed in reaching decisions by their own personal or political agenda. That’s far from the reputation of independence and impartiality we expect for the nation’s highest court.

Indeed, until its decision on healthcare, the Roberts court was well on its way to being written off as the most predictable, political, proactive, partisan court in history. But Roberts himself has begun to turn things around by writing the majority opinion on healthcare. The court is still badly split, but now there is hope that saner voices might prevail.

John Roberts to the rescue. He may have destroyed Mitt Romney. But he saved the court.